Tess catches me staring at the ribbon and I look away, praying my ears don’t turn red again. She probably thought I was checking out her boobs. I wasn’t checking out her boobs. The ribbon is right under her boobs, but how do you explain that to a person? I know it seemed like I was looking at your boobs, but honestly, I wasn’t. I just think your dress is really nice even though I don’t know anything about dresses, and that ribbon is lovely, and I was fantasizing about tugging on it, but not looking at your boobs, I promise.
My palms are sweating, so I surreptitiously wipe them on my jeans. My mouth is dry. All the water in my body seems to be going to the wrong location at the moment.
Tess reaches for her phone. Shit. Why can’t I be normal? She’s already on her phone and our freaking server hasn’t even come back yet. I should have just left when I had the chance, but now it’s too weird.
Then my phone buzzes.
Oh.
I look at it.
Hey, do you see the guy by the window in the really bad Wolverine cosplay?
Relief. She isn’t bored with me yet. I sneak a peek at the disheveled-looking guy, who must have just come in because I didn’t see him earlier. He grimaces as he drinks a steaming cup of sludge brown coffee, his chest hair sticking out of his white V-neck in big tufts. I text back.
Omg
She sends another text. I’m not one to shame a cosplayer, maybe that’s his best effort, but C’MON, REALLY?????
I write, Tess…
She writes, Where are his claws? GROWING UR NAILS LONG DOESNT COUNT, DUDE!!!
I giggle out loud. I look up from my phone and see that Tess is grinning, but she’s on a roll now, she doesn’t stop typing.
His hair isn’t even spiked, like this is BSAIC SIHT HERE, CLAIRE.
“Tess!” I say out loud.
“What?” She looks up from furiously typing, a gleam in her eyes.
“That’s not a costume,” I hiss.
We both look at him again, and yeah, that’s just some guy in a T-shirt eating a pancake. Our eyes meet, and we crack up laughing.
Not-Wolverine looks over at us and scowls, which only makes us laugh harder.
“Okay, Fun Table, who’s ready to order?” our server says, coming over.
“I am!” I say.
We don’t bring up the panel at all for the rest of dinner. It turns out we have lots of other things to discuss. We trade stories about our high schools: I tell her what it’s like to go to the grocery store while the football team is playing a game—so empty it’s like a zombie apocalypse hit. She can’t conceive of a school where the 4-H program is more popular than the drama program and the county fair is the highlight of the year, not the battle of the bands. She tells me her Seattle public school has a gender and sexuality alliance that’s basically like a club for the queer kids. I take a moment to picture Pine Bluff doing something like that and… yeah, no. Maybe in fifty years. Or a hundred and fifty. She says there are straight kids in the club, too, and also “questioning” kids. She doesn’t press it, but I wonder if she’s trying to tell me something or if I’m just reading too much into it.
Then, because neither one of us can go more than thirty minutes without talking about Demon Heart, we start gushing about it. There’s just so much we agree on, like how the show balances emotional stories with action so well, and how Heart has the most tragic backstory of any character on television, and how the elaborate mythology just keeps getting more interesting the more we learn about it. And we’re both dying to know what happens in the finale that’s just around the corner. Will Smokey and Heart finally make their peace? Will they be able to defeat the Commander and send him back to hell? Will Smokey be able to forgive himself for his mistakes? Will they cry? (We both hope they cry.) It’s cathartic to finally get to talk about all this with another person, instead of just online, and Tess knows just as much or even more about the show than I do. Our dinner flies by, and our server is bringing the check before I even realized how long we’ve been sitting there.
After dinner, we still have plenty of time left on our parking meter, so Tess and I walk down to the path that runs next to the Willamette River. It’s cool but not cold, with a breeze coming off the water, and clouds overhead threatening to sprinkle on us at any moment, but there are a lot of other people out for an evening stroll as well. No one’s afraid of a little rain in this town. Tess pulls a knit shawl out of her large fabric purse to wrap around her arms; meanwhile I’m over here in my faded Gore-Tex jacket I’ve had since sixth grade. I swear to god, who wears knit shawls besides grannies and Tess? I don’t know, but I love it.
The lights of the city reflect off the dark waves of the river. Portland’s bridges repeat into the distance as other pedestrians and bicyclists pass by us, bundled up in their rain jackets and hats. A gay couple in their twenties passes us in the other direction, holding hands. One of them gives us a little smile. Did we just trip his gaydar? For the five-hundredth time I wonder if Tess thinks this is a date.
I wonder what it would be like to kiss her.
Then I wonder where that thought came from.
I’ve imagined kissing people before. I used to picture myself marrying my old middle school librarian, Mr. Washington. He was tall and thin, black and bald, and I would picture our life together—working side by side in the library, then going home to our cottage where bookcases line every wall. I would pick out his next book and he’d pick mine, and we’d share a kiss before settling into our individual armchairs with mugs of cocoa to read for the evening.
I used to spend my lunches in middle school reading in the library rather than eat in the cafeteria. Mr. Washington seemed to always know when to give me a kind word, and when to leave me alone. On my last day of middle school, he hugged me and told me I was going to be okay, I just needed to make it to college, and then he forgave my overdue fines. I waited until I was back in my bedroom later that day to cry.
The next year, there was a boy, Curtis, in my trigonometry class who would ask me for help on problems, and I would whisper explanations to him. Curtis was a senior, and I was a freshman, and he would improvise compliments about Mrs. Newton’s elaborately quilted vests under his breath that would make me laugh. “Now, Helen, how did you pull off that saddle stitch on the center panel?” he would say, mimicking an old woman’s voice. His jokes were quiet, just for me. He had unruly dark hair and he was trying to grow a mustache and beard, but it was coming in patchy. I thought about what it would be like if he gave me a ride home in his muddy old pickup one day so I didn’t have to take the bus, if he told me he thought I was hot, not just smart. If he kissed me right there in his truck, where anyone could drive by and see that yes, a boy liked me, and yes, a boy kissed me, and yes, I could be loved. And I would blush and run into my house and he would watch me go, yearning.
But Curtis never offered me a ride home. He just stopped coming to class one day. I overheard someone say that he had joined the marines and dropped out of school, but I don’t know if it’s true.
Then, of course, there’s Kyle Cunningham. That one, I don’t have to imagine.
It happened on the long afternoon Kyle and I spent sharing a beanbag in the basement of his family’s farmhouse this past fall, his hand on my leg as we watched Netflix and ate popcorn and peanut M&M’S. It felt good, being that close to him. He smelled musty, like earth and maybe horses. He had taken off his hat to lie down with me, and his dirty hair stuck up in every direction in a messy look I had found endearing. When the episode ended and Netflix asked us if we were still watching, I said, “Another?” and he turned to me and whispered, “How about this instead?” Then he kissed me, the slight prickle of his would-be stubble scratching my chin, his lips warm and wet and needy. He tasted like chewing tobacco—sweet and bitter.
I remember thinking over and over, I’m kissing someone. I’m kissing someone. I’m being kissed right now. This is kissing.
It felt like how kissing looks, like two people pressing
their lips together. I thought of Curtis, and whether he would have kissed this well. He probably would have stopped to make a joke, and we would never have gotten back around to kissing again. But Kyle Cunningham was persistent, single-minded. Still kissing, Kyle slid his hand up my leg, up, up, until he was cupping my crotch. Then he just kept his hand there, still, like he was holding a grapefruit. I frowned into the kiss and burrowed my butt deeper into the beanbag chair, away from his hand, but he followed me, kept it there. Then he squeezed.
I broke off the kiss and wiggled away from him.
“What?” he asked.
I just looked at him, not having any words. The TV had gone dark, a logo bouncing around on the screen. His parents were making dinner for us upstairs.
“What, Claire? Don’t tell me you don’t want to.” He tipped his head down and looked at me, his eyebrows furrowed into that pout that I’d seen him do before. His eyes were blue and intense, and I think he probably knew that they had an effect on people. “I see the way you look at me,” he said with a slight smile.
It was true, I had looked at him a lot. I had liked his arms, his muscles, his wavy hair. I had liked his dumb folded-over hats. I had liked his jeans, and how they wrapped around his butt. I had liked his saunter-y walk and the casual way he had rolled up to my locker and asked if I wanted to hang out, like it was no big deal, like he wasn’t upending the entire high school social structure with a simple offer. Like we were allowed to talk to each other.
For an afternoon, it was almost something, until he undermined it.
“I want a ride home,” I said.
He swore and balked, but eventually gave me a silent, angry ride back to my house.
As I got out of the car, my hands shaking around my JanSport, I heard him mutter under his breath, “Only trying to do you a favor.”
That night, I ignored my parents, took my dinner straight to my room, and turned on the TV for noise.
That’s the night Demon Heart premiered.
I watched it and became obsessed. With Smokey, with Heart, with their love.
The way Smokey kisses Heart in fanfiction, it’s like everything I wanted Kyle Cunningham to be.
SmokeHeart kisses are enormous, emotional affairs. Years of longing built up behind a dam that bursts, and unleashes a wave of emotion spilling out onto each other all at once. SmokeHeart is about two people connecting, on equal terms. It’s about caring about another person more than yourself.
Does Kyle Cunningham care about anyone other than Kyle Cunningham?
The wind picks up off the Willamette and tosses my hair back. I sneak a peek at Tess, who pushes her hair out of her eyes. The streetlights hit her soft, curved, dark cheeks, giving her a gentle glow.
What would kissing Tess be like?
Tess is no Kyle Cunningham. She’s no Mr. Washington, no Curtis from trig class, no Forest Reed, either. Tess is brightness and life.
I realize with wonder that this feels like a real date, not a watch-Netflix-and-grope afternoon in a basement. Maybe my future will be full of dates and nighttime walks along rivers and waffles-for-dinner-just-because-we-feel-like-it. Mr. Washington seemed to think it would be. For the first time, I wonder if he was right.
“Can I ask you a question?” Tess asks, tipping her head back to look at the moon as we walk.
“Sure,” I say.
“What’s the first fic you ever read?” She shoots me a conspiratorial smile.
“Oh man, no way.”
“C’mon!” she protests, laughing.
“Are you kidding? Too embarrassing. We barely know each other!”
“Yeah, but I feel like you already know me better than my friends back home do,” she says, and she’s kidding, but I can tell she’s kind of not, also. She looks at me shyly, and it makes me want to tell her, but then I remember what the answer is, and I just can’t do it.
“You first,” I say.
“Cheating, but okay. So. It was the summer I was eleven. My brother had given me a Jonas Brothers album for my birthday…”
“Oh no.” I clutch my face in embarrassment. I can already tell where this is going. Tess is laughing, too, totally aware of how shameful this is, but she barrels forward anyway.
“It was a tough summer for me. My boobs had just—BOING. And my best friend at the time, Harper, was dating this lifeguard, so she wanted to spend the whole summer at the pool and I couldn’t find a swimsuit that didn’t completely mortify me.” She shakes her head, taking a minute to relive it. “So I was alone a lot that summer,” she continues, her voice a little rougher than it was before. “I spent a lot of time in my room, sitting on my bed, listening to that damn CD on my pink-and-purple boom box. There was something about the Jonas Brothers that just…helped. I could create a whole world around their songs that was just in my head, that no one else knew about. All for me.”
“Yeah,” I say, nodding. She could be describing any number of my own summers in Pine Bluff, not going out, just diving inward, into my own brain, into my computer, into my fandom.
“So I started reading JoBro fanfic. First the ones where they fall in love with Miley Cyrus, or a fan or something. The self-insert stuff was fun because no one ever writes about Nick Jonas falling for a black girl, but if it was written in first person, I could imagine she was me.”
I nod. I get it, but I don’t get it. That’s something I haven’t had to deal with.
“But anyway, then I read this slash fic…” Her eyes sparkle with delight.
“Tess!” I interject.
“I know!”
“They are brothers.”
“I know, I know, but slash is just so much more interesting. And when you’re in Jonas Brothers fandom, the best slash is, you know, brother!fic.”
I bust up laughing, I can’t help it. Of course I relate. I couldn’t tell you a single Jonas Brothers song, but I’m sure if I’d received that CD at that time in my life, the exact same thing would’ve happened to me. Tess is laughing, too, and her smile is a lantern in the darkness, lighting up everything around us.
She says, “I mean, brothers or not, isn’t it just way more fun to listen to the songs if you’re imagining they’re singing all those love ballads to each other?”
“Obviously.”
“I think I still have a list of fic recs I could send you…” she says with a sideways smile.
“Thank you, that’s very kind, but I’m good.”
“Okay, I went, now it’s your turn. What was your first fandom?”
I screw up my face. Crusading on the importance of queer representation? That I can do without batting an eye. Carrying on about Demon Heart and why it’s appealing to young women? Easy, done. But talking about my first fandom? That’s personal. Now we’re sharing little pieces of ourselves, and I’m really, really not used to doing that.
But Tess is looking at me so expectantly, and she told me hers and how can I say no to those wide brown eyes?
“So… my parents don’t believe in TV,” I start, and she squeals, hopping back and forth on her toes. “Okay, I’m telling you! Relax!” I laugh.
“What do you mean, they don’t believe in it?”
“We never had TV growing up. No cable at least, just an ancient old TV with bunny ears they kept in the closet and pulled out for, like, presidential debates.”
“You kept your TV in a closet?” She looks incredulous.
“I know, ironic. Look at me now. Anyway, when we moved to Pine Bluff, I didn’t know anybody, and all the kids at school had already been friends for a decade. So I didn’t go out much, and I ended up hauling the TV out and watching movies at home. We had a few DVDs, but there was one tape—on VHS, I’m not even kidding you—that I watched constantly.” I glance at her. “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.”
She cracks up. “Are we about to talk about inter-turtle romance?”
“No! Okay, I mean, there was some of that, obviously, but I was more interested in April. You know, O’Neil?”
“Yeah, of course. The reporter.”
“Yeah. We know so little about her in canon other than she’s a crusading young journalist, and all the turtles want to bang her. But who is she? What’s her story? Why does she spend all her time getting captured and sitting around waiting to be rescued?”
We step off the path to let a large, rowdy bachelorette party pass, all the ladies drunk and chattering, wearing sashes. Rather than yell over their noise, I keep the conversation going by leaning in close to Tess. I can smell her shampoo, something botanical and sweet.
“So I googled her—April. And I found a whole world of people, mostly other girls, asking the same questions that I was, and they were answering them…”
“In fanfiction,” Tess finishes. She turns her head just a bit, and despite the parade of women tottering by in heels, all I see is her. I can almost feel her breath on mine. The scratchy wool of her shawl rubs against the back of my hand. My eyes drift to the part of her chin that softens into her neck, and my skin erupts into goose bumps, even though I’m wearing a jacket. I watch as the corners of her mouth turn up—just the hint of a smile touching her lips. I swallow. Then the women pass, their cackles fade, and the moment subsides.
We step back onto the path and keep walking. I try not to think about whatever it was that just passed between us. She felt it, too, right?
I intentionally direct my brain back to the conversation at hand. “April never gets to be the hero in the movies, but in fanfic, finally, she’s the lead. We get to discover all sorts of things about her backstory. What happened to her parents? Car accident. How does she feel about sewers? Unsavory but necessary, and kind of cozy. What’s her favorite food? Oysters”—I raise my eyebrows—“on the half shell.”
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